Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Caress of Twilight--Chapter 2

Okay. long day at work=done. Request for time off that PROBABLY won't be honored (...wanted to go see relatives for my b-day) turned in, and beer=opened. Life is good. How bad could this possibly be?

THE WINDOWS OF MY OFFICE SHOWED A NEARLY FAULTLESS sky, like somebody had taken a single blue cornflower petal and stretched it to fill the air above us.

...hold on hold on I've got a bucket--

Whoo. That was a close one.

Also, apparently huge-ass murder rate=grumpy people. Merry Gentry is not the kind of person who should be using the word "grumpy". She's got about as much cutesy in her as a horned toad. You know, the lizard that shoots jets of blood out of its eyes whenever it feels threatened? Yeah. Not a lot of cutesy there.

So a guy has come to Merry's job as a PI.

Her firm doesn't do divorces/cheating investigations. Which means her PI firm must have fuck-all to do, because boring stakeouts of horrible people's homes are a PI's bread and butter. (Google "kimkins" and imagine how it felt to be the PI attached to that case. Go ahead. Google it. It's a trainwreck. It's fucking beautiful.)

By the way? I do not buy that Jeremy Gray's (AKA Merry's boss) firm doesn't do the only thing that will net his firm money. So far our onscreen cases have involved one divorce. Albeit one that involved magic, but divorce is divorce is divorce, and what Merry and Co. do now isn't all that different from having to sit outside Mrs. Robinson's house, waiting for the latest Christian Gray clone to appear.

Also? Merry keeps a man under her desk. He's part goblin and is small, but still. Merry Gentry keeps a man under her desk. This makes The dude from Ghost look fucking restrained.

Anyway, a dude has arrived at Merry's firm. And LKH has learned since the last book that we do not want to see paragraph on paragraph of the main character describing herself. Instead, she lets the dude do it:

“I’ve never seen anyone whose true hair color was Sidhe Scarlet. It’s like your hair is made of rubies.”

At this point, folks, I don't think LKH even writes the first third of her books anymore. I think she just copy-pastas major descriptions in and then tags plot points on like basil leaves.

“The green of your jacket brings out the green and gold in your eyes. I’ve never seen anyone with tricolored irises before,”

Oh yeah. How's this for Mary Sue, folks: Merry has three colors in her eyes. Folks, have you ever paid attention to actual eye color before? I have. It's part of doing art. I ignore it, because real eye colors are boring, but I do pay attention. And for all the importance we put on eyes, they don't really come in a lot of variations, and we really don't notice the color all that much. I have seen my boss almost every fucking day for the past three years, and I cannot tell you with any confidence if her eyes are blue or brown (her son's eyes are brown, but that's less because I know him better and more because his dad was hispanic)

Basically, LKH is shoving three colors into a piece of biological real estate that is barely big enough to hold one.

But CW! This is a very special mark of being Sidhe, and it's important and yadda yadda bullshit. These guys are green and gold and white and brown and whatever other colors LKH felt were particularly shiny today. Tri-colored irises are not even consistant within the race itself. As we will soon find out. There was no thought put into this. World building fail, ladies and gents. It knows no bounds.

Ah, but why is Jeffery Randomname putting so much effort into hitting on Merry? Because if a Fae puts extra effort into their apperance, it's bad form not to compliment them on how sexy they look, and Merry took care to dress all in green today. Green, boys and girls, is a complimentary color to red, which is the color of her hair, which is the exact color of rubies, and therefor she put extra effort into being pretty and thus must be hit on to be polite.

And then the suck stops for about five seconds, because Merry realizes this means Jeffery has been coached on how to act with her, which means his employer must know something about the Fae...or else, be Fae themselves.

She asks who the employer is.

Jefferey refuses to tell her.

This goes back and forth for several pages.

Then finally he drops enough hints for Ms. Gentry, professional PI to discern that he's talking about Maeve Reed, the GOLDEN GODDESS OF HOLLYWOOD (caps required)

And LKH wins her first set of worldbuilding brownie points, because if you are immortal, hotter than the surface of the sun and destined to be young-looking and hot forever, and you can act? Hollywood is the place for you. Maeve Reed is Sidhe and an exile from the Seelie court for Reasons. No one knows what these Reasons are, but they exist. They exist enough for Taranis, the King of the Seelie court, to have beaten Merry almost to death for asking about them.

Maeve wants to meet with someone of her own kind.

Merry and one of her guard, Rhys, is shocked and elated and a little awed that the GOLDEN GODDESS OF HOLLYWOOD (caps required) wants to meet with them. Doyle is more like "Da fuq?" which requires long exposition about how the Fae came to hollywood and how Hollywood wants more fae.

Also, through all of this? Kitto, Merry's desk-man, has been pawing at her legs. Because we need to be reminded about having sex even though the plot is still in the hopeful stage of LKH-devolution.

Merry doesn't say Maeve Reed's name aloud because Taranis might be able to hear her. The Queen of Crazypants, Anadais, can hear things spoken in darkness. EVERYTHING spoken in darkness. So maybe Taranis can hear things said in daylight? Rhys is quick to assure her this isn't true, and that bit of Filler goes the way of sex scenes and Clary Frey's friend Simon.

Merry and the guards retreat to discuss the job without Jeffery Randomname looking on, and the chapter ends.

"Merrytook care to dress all in green today. Green,boys and girls, is a complimentary color tored, which is the color of her hair, which isthe exact color of rubies"

Yes, redheads do tend to look good in green. Also blue, or the right shade of purple, or sometimes even red. Lots of colours, really. LKH reached for the most basic colour-combo known to gingers everywhere, and then sent in a guy to praise Merry for her fashion wisdom.

And the evil queen's name is 'Taranis'? Really? What, was Kittenkillerella too subtle?

I don't think a person more famous than Elvis would make a particularly good private detective. You can't go around asking subtle questions when you're known by every Joe Blow on the street. Also, I think the "no divorces" thing was one of Philip Marlowe's rules. Way to crib from better books. :/